The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses, such as a copy machine, a multifunction peripheral (MFP), etc., which have the document box function of storing document data, and document management methods which are performed using a plurality of such image forming apparatuses.
Image forming apparatuses with the document box function of storing document data have in recent years been developed. In this type of image forming apparatuses, document data stored in a document box can be printed on demand. Also, the following technique has been proposed. Specifically, in this technique, a plurality of image forming apparatuses having a document box are connected together via a network. Document data stored in the document box of each image forming apparatus can be referenced by the other image forming apparatuses. When document data stored in one image forming apparatus (a referenced image forming apparatus or a referenced entity) is referenced by another one (a referencing image forming apparatus or a referencing entity), the referenced document data is registered as a reference document in a document box of the referencing image forming apparatus. In this technique, the document data registered as a reference document is not stored in the referencing image forming apparatus. When the referencing image forming apparatus is instructed to print the reference document, the document data of the reference document is transmitted from the referenced image forming apparatus storing the document data of the reference document via the network to the referencing image forming apparatus. After receiving the transmitted document data, the referencing image forming apparatus prints the document data.